Over the past two years, the CropManage research and outreach team has been working hard to increase the number of crops available in CropManage. We now have 34 different crops available for growers to use to help manage irrigation and fertility decisions.
To add a crop into CropManage, it’s a multi-year process that involves developing an evapotranspiration (ET) model to help with irrigation decisions and a nitrogen model to help with fertilization decisions. Our research group installs irrigation monitoring equipment, measures canopy sizes, and tracks water use throughout the season to develop the ET model for each new crop. Nitrogen models are developed similarly, with cooperation from growers to track fertilizer application dates, fertilizer type, and amounts applied for each new crop.
We are excited to have added several vegetables, fruits, tree nut crops, and agronomic crops (see below). If you don’t see your crop, one option is to use a similar crop (e.g., cilantro for parsley). Alternatively, you could contact us and let us know what crop you would like to see!
For more information on how to use CropManage, please check out our tutorials.
Do you have a crop that you would like to see included in CropManage? If so, please let us know – contact Michael Cahn (mdcahn@ucanr.edu) or Mercy Olmstead (molmstead@ucanr.edu).